Petition update
Does This Sound Like an 'Emotionally Harming' Mother?
Nov 19, 2016 — Dear Supporters,
you will have seen in the previous petition updates, how as an autistic parent I am being discriminated against by professionals, including social services and the lies being told, the lack of evidence and information sought from the family - but I wanted to ask you all, if the following examples sound like the actions of an 'emotionally harming' parent who doesn't support their children's emotional wellbeing and development, in any case:
CHILD 1
1. mother asked LA to enable child's SEN transport to allow her to attend after-school clubs for social opportunities and fun, when they refused (to save money as child co-shared), asked the school instead to fund transport to enable it, which they did;
2. mother asked school SENCO to act as referee for child to attend a 6wk surfing course that was funded for anxious children, to enable her to have social opportunities and a new experience (course was undertaken);
3. mother completed application to charitable organisation who provide befrienders for children, to take them to activities and outings;
4. mother regularly offered activities that came up in the local Parent Partnership newsletter;
5. mother asked school multiple times to reinstate a 'friendship circle group' which they had discontinued (causing upset to child who struggles greatly socially), in which mainstream peers were supported to play with child;
6. mother listened to and advocated for child's voice about all school difficulties and liaised regularly with school to try to ensure needs were met;
7. mother applied to several charities for charitable awards for child;
8. mother sourced opportunities and encouraged child to enter into talent shows and competitions at child's request;
9. mother applied to SENDIST tribunal for appropriate school placement in the hope of ensuring child's individual SENs would be met.
CHILD 2
1. mother asked LA to enable her SEN transport to allow her to attend after-school clubs for social opportunities and fun and encouraged child to go;
2. mother contacted several organisations and offered to child, various befriending services for outings and socialising;
3. mother offered youth club opportunities to child;
4. mother asked LA to act as referee for child to attend a 6wk surfing course that was funded for anxious children, to enable her to have social opportunities and a new experience (course was undertaken);
5. mother found online children's anxiety programmes for child to help with mental health difficulties;
6. mother applied to Young Carers due to impact of sibling's challenging behaviour on child, for outings and peer socialising;
7. mother bought in various private therapies to help child's anxiety and depression;
8. mother listened to and advocated for child's voice about all school difficulties and liaised regularly with school to help ensure needs were met;
9. mother sourced opportunities and encouraged child to enter into talent shows and competitions at child's request;
10. mother applied to SENDIST tribunal for appropriate school placement in the hope of ensuring child's individual SENs would be met;
11. mother listened to child's voice and requests and religiously attended all CAMHS sessions with child to support in therapy sessions.
All of these above actions are provable and were proactively done by mother to meet children's needs.
But social services don't ask parents for evidence and information, they just go full steam ahead with completely one-sided and misrepresentative 'investigations', full of personal opinions, falsehoods and distortions which are written as fact. Value judgments based in ignorance of those they judge and an automatic parent blame culture.
There is a term professionals use when opining about a child's environment: 'protective factors' which means the positives (usually about parenting), they are supposed to (honestly) consider a child's whole environment to give their opinion. Social services seem to not even bother with looking for positives, just fictionalising and distorting what they can into negatives, to attempt to justify their actions.
We have to end this. Help us do so.
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